Cathy's Art Diary

Beautiful exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery to show the shortlisted paintings in this year’s portrait awards. The show marked the return off the annual exhibition to the gallery after its refurbishment as well as a new sponsor. I thought it was of a much higher quality than some years where you felt you would recognise the sitters if you saw them in the street. Some years the images have got quite abstract. Favourites started with the first picture I saw by Alexander Macdonald of his daughter in law which included a self-portrait being which was shown in the 1986 version of the show. A portrait of dancer with alopecia by Massimiliano Pironti was stunningly detailed. There were some good paintings of older people such as Aleksandra Sokolova’s painting of his grandfather who died while he was painting it and “Man with Closed Eyes” by Daniel Nelis. This year’s winner was a beautiful egg tempera piece by Antony Williams whose work I’ve seen in Messum’s Gallery. I recog

Thoughtful exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery looking at Henry VIII’s wives. The show cleverly started by looking at the afterlife of the women and how their stories have been told on stage and screen and in literature. It discussed how each era has projected their own values onto them. As a child of the 70s I was excited to see costume designs for the tv series on them which I loved and which probably sparked my interest in history. These were shown alongside costumes from other productions including the current “Six”. The show then went on to set the scene of what the court was like and in particular the role of mythical and biblical stories in the art and literature. The meat of the show then went through the Queens in order discussing their lives and the people around them and giving a flavour of what they collected and had around them. There were beautiful objects and paintings including good use of miniatures. The show was full of excited Tudor geeks when I wa

Fabulous exhibition at the National Gallery focusing on Degas’s painting of 1879 “Miss La La at the Cirque Fernando”. The show started by looking at Miss La La, a famous acrobat whose real name was Anna Albertine Olga Brown, using photographs of her and posters from her shows to tell her story. It then looked at the circus in Paris and how it influenced artists. The main section was an appropriately circular space with the painting at the centre. Around it were the studies Degas did at the circus and in his studio to create the work. As La La was a woman of in colour the show then looks at Degas’s trip to family in New Orleans, how he saw more people of colour there and how that influenced his art. The show finished with a section on how the painting influenced later artists and included a Duncan Grant painting of elephants in the circus that I’d never seen before. Closed 1 September 2024 Reviews Times Guardian  

Interesting online lecture from the Royal Collections Trust discussing how royal portrait photographs have been used in newspapers. The talk accompanied the exhibition at the King’s Gallery marking a century of royal portrait photographs. Helen Lewandowski talked about how photographs were adapted for use in the press. She talked about the decisions over what image was to be used and how it might be tweaked. She also talked about how the technology of both photography and printing changed and the effect this had. She also talked about the relationship between the sitters and the photographers focusing on Cecil Beaton, Dorothy Wilding and Lord Snowdon and how the royal family have used photographs to change their image over the years.

Delightful exhibition in the visitors’ Centre at the Old Royal Naval College Greenwich looking at the Chocolate House run by Grace Tosier in Blackheath in the 18th century. Although the show was small, and used a lot of reproduction pieces, it told the story of this successful establishment clearly and used it to try the wider story of Greenwich from the collapse of the Tudor Palace to a new prosperity in the 18th century. It also explained the chocolate industry and how it became more popular after the British occupied Jamaica in 1655. You could have easily missed the main installation of the show, a lovely recreation of the establishment with a video and soundtrack of likely discussions which took place there. It was hidden behind a modern door to one side. Closes 3 November 2024  

Interesting exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery of work by four photographers and film makers exploring environmentally friendly techniques. I loved Scott Hunter’s “Darkroom Ecology” where he is growing plants in the darkroom residue and then harvesting them to reuse as non-toxic developers. I must admit I didn’t understand a lot of the technicalities of this show but I thought this looked beautiful. My favourite pieces were by    Almudena Romero who printed hands onto leaves. Again I don’t really understand how but the images reminded me of ethereal early photography. Closed 28 July 2024